Out of Control
by Muffinsama
Summary: He stared at himself in the mirror intently until the whispers had died down and he could no longer hear his own insanity bloom within his mind. - Izaya/Shizuo, Izuo
1. Chapter 1

Promt from the Durarara! kinkmeme:

Raijin-era Izaya/Shizuo - Teamwork, Bondage

Filled with punks, thugs and criminals, Raijin High School was the worst school of Ikebukuro even before Shizuo and Izaya got there. Shizuo's there for obvious reasons, the last school that would let him in. Izaya stabbed his best friend in middle school, isn't he just the worst? Neither of them want to be there.  
>Reluctant teamwork to full blown Izuo. With no Shinra at this school, they have to lick their own wounds, literally. Izaya tops Shizuo, giving all the fluffy sex he can muster, but when he wants some kinky bondage, Shizuo does not want.<br>Izaya manipulates up a storm so he can keep control of Shizuo, but the seniors figured him out and are bent for revenge. Izaya gets the receiving end of bondage. Maybe Shizuo's figured him out too.

* * *

><p>The building itself already looked uninviting, and the dark clouds hovering above it, quietly growling as a thunderstorm approached, gave it an almost eerie aura.<p>

With its high, concrete walls and the rather small windows, barely noticeable among the vast amount of dull gray, it greatly resembled a prison, or an abandoned air raid shelter.

The so called school hovered intimidatingly above the boy, who was rather short for his age, as he approached, feeling very much like a criminal walking towards the electric chair to be executed.

The random yells that sounded a lot like the howls of angry, _hungry_ animals, that came from within the building, didn't serve to encourage the doomed teen.

A fat lady stood at the entrance, which he reached just as it began to rain and the first bolt of lightening illuminated the sky, scaring away a few birds that had been searching the courtyard for bread crumbs.

She looked like she had been waiting for him, her arms crossed as she practically scanned him over the rim of her reading glasses with piercingly sharp eyes much like those of an eagle.

"Orihara Izaya?" The woman asked. He nodded silently.

"My name is Kojima Eiko, I'm the principal of this school. It's nice to meet you." Her introduction was accompanied by a crash of thunder that made him jump just slightly.

Needless to say, the sound of her stern voice, the frown on her bloated face, everything about her and this place practically spelled: _'Welcome to Hell'_


	2. Chapter 2

Once he had crossed the wide hallway, which looked surprisingly modern with it's clean, white PVC floor coating, and the stone staircase leading upstairs, he followed the principal into one of the badly lit, narrower hallways.

Behind him, the door leading back outside fell closed heavily, which caused him to look over his shoulder, watching some neatly clothed secretary lock the only way out.

The principal stopped when she noticed that he had stopped following her, and raised a thinly plucked eyebrow at the obvious discomfort he felt from being locked in.

"We always keep the front door locked." The woman clarified, reaching out a chubby hand to grab his arm tightly and pull him along. "We're just making sure no one can come in and harm any of the children."

It was wrong in many ways to call the students, who were mostly adolescents, some of them even adults, _children_, especially since practically all of the pupils here were either criminals who were too young to go to prison for their crimes, or ex inmates who were still under the age of 21 and had been given one last chance to get their degree.

The brunet assumed, that it was her way of being condescending, because he highly doubted that she was one of those people who believed that everyone did things for a reason, and that there was always an excuse for a human's actions.

To people who worked in her field of expertise, every criminal was the same, whether there was an actual reason as to why they had commited a crime, or had just done it out of boredom.

A door was held open for him, and the 16 year old teenager observed the room with eyes that looked both brown and red, depending on the lighting.

It looked a lot like an infirmary to him, and it was obviously too small to be a class room.

There was a wooden desk and three chairs, several medical cabinets adorned the white walls. Curtains hid the larger part of the room, and he guessed that there really were makeshift beds hidden behind the strong, white fabric.

He wasn't asked to sit down, so he stood, feeling just a little lost in the middle of the room, as the woman walked around him and sat down heavily on one of the chairs.

"Undress behind the curtain, please. I need to search your clothing for weapons or any other dangerous objects or substances."

The trained politeness of her speech made him realize that this was something he should have expected, but he still flinched.

This really was like prison. Not that he had been ever there as an inmate, thankfully.

Stepping behind the white curtain, he drew it back together, making sure there was no gap, deeply detesting his hands for trembling, as he undid the zipper of his black jacket.

A few moments later, he parted the curtain just enough to push his hand through, dropping a messy pile of clothing onto the ground.

Anxiously, he waited while she went through his things, feeling vaguely vulnerable, as he stood there, completely nude, and listened to her searching through his pockets, patting his clothing as if she expected something illegal to be sewn into the fabric.

He could have just taken whatever weapon he might have carried out of the pocket and hidden it while she searched his clothes, but apparently, she didn't think it was necessary to make him strip in front of her, because he just didn't seem that dangerous to her. He was rather glad that he hadn't brought his switch blade.

The principal had, however, left an impression on him that made him confident that she was the kind of person who was all professional and handled everything rationally, without having any personal interest in anything work related, or any hidden motives.

He depended on such people, because they were easy to predict, as well as consistant enough to not become a threat of some kind. Which didn't mean that he liked them any more than any other human.

"You may redress." She said neutrally.

He didn't need to be told twice, reaching out with a thin, pale arm as she handed him his clothing.

There was another stretched silence, as he put his clothes back on, the clanking of his belt as he closed it sounding absurdly loud.

He reappeared from behind the curtain and noticed that the woman had already gotten up and was opening the door for him.


	3. Chapter 3

Under her watchful gaze, he went back into the hallway and waited for her to close the door behind her, letting her walk ahead of him once more, as they both ascended the stairs into the first floor.

The hallways and rooms looked almost the same as below, minus the huge entrance hall.

There were two hallways opposite of each other, and they took the one to his right, walking all the way to the end, approaching a dark wooden door.

Next to it was a tag, bold, golden letters telling him that this was the principal's office.

The door opened to reveal an elegant, but slightly old fashioned office with light coming from a rather large window, from which one could observe the entire courtyard and the rest of the building that extended to each side, making him realize that this school was actually a lot bigger than he had first thought.

"I need you to fill out these—" She handed him a few sheets of paper that looked highly official

He glimpsed at them and felt slightly offended that he even had to fill in his own name. If the woman had found the time to learn his name so she could personally greet him, then surely it wasn't too much to ask that she at least fill out his name on the form.

Then he wondered if maybe because his name was so uncommon, especially the combination of kanji his first name consisted of, she hadn't known if there wasn't some kind of mistake. After all, the two kanji 臨也 which were used to spell his first name would normally be read as 'Rinya', which he had jokingly used as a chat nickname once.

He felt slightly paranoid when he had to answer questions about any health conditions and allergies he might have, because he vaguely feared that such information would be used against him. So he lied a little, just to see if they would try to sneak nuts into his food, if he wrote down that he was allergic to them.

Silently, he handed the forms back to the woman, who had been waiting expectantly.

"Thank you." She said coldly. "Now, there are a few rules and regulations I will inform you about."

He nodded. Keeping silent was part of his plan of not revealing anything about himself. This way, the woman would perceive him as the 'quiet' type. Too lazy to talk, and therefore not worthy of being paid much attention to.

"First of all, we have metal detectors on every exit to make sure no weapons are smuggled into the building. We will search every student for drugs every now and then as a precaution." He nodded absently, keeping his curiousity at bay, while there was still a suspiciously intelligent glint in his red eyes.

"The school building and grounds are video supervised at all times, and there are only a few rooms, including the bathrooms, that aren't being monitored. Also, the building and grounds are cleaned by the students as a social project. Your homeroom teacher will tell you your shifts. We also have physical exams twice a year and we're testing every student for illegal substance use."

Okay, so he'd have to get some geek to pee into a cup for him, no big deal. Since Izaya was on rather friendly terms with certain substances from time to time, he didn't feel like abandoning them just because some fat school principal felt like sticking her nose into his business.

"Do you have any questions?" She asked, bored already by his non responsive behavior, and received a monotonue shake of the head.

"Well, then, your homeroom teacher should—" She was interrupted by a knock just as she said this, which seemed almost staged, and a man in his mid thirties entered, half a head taller than Izaya, but equally thin.

"Madam." He said, his voice sounding oily and falsely polite. His murky brown eyes were slanted upwards and threw Izaya an evaluating look, up down and up again, as if he was looking at a juicy piece of meat he considered buying and devouring for dinner.

As they descended the stairs, with Izaya in front, undoubtedly so the teacher could look at his ass, the raven haired teen decided that he would need some allies who could protect him.

Suddenly, a soda vending machine barely missed his head, quickly followed by an unfortunate human being, that was flying through the air.

Izaya stopped, looked back at the mess the vending machine had left behind, and _smiled_.


	4. Chapter 4

Izaya noticed something that had dropped to the ground right next to him and picked the small item up swiftly.

A blond haired, tall teenaged boy stomped around the corner, an infuriated look on his face that was still in place when he noticed the teacher, who was currently crouching down and trying to get the poor boy who had been thrown into a wall to get up.

"And that is why you do not steal anything that belongs to Heiwajima Shizuo." Izaya said amicably, looking at the pathetic heap of a person that barely twitched, while twirling a zippo lighter in his hand.

"How do you know my name?" the blond asked, still looking rather pissed, while his eyes didn't look away from the lighter in his hand, which undoubtedly belonged to Shizuo. They both ignored the teacher, who was still trying to get a response out of the injured student.

"Ah, I believe we have a mutual friend." Izaya said, keeping the lighter for the time being. "I don't suppose you know Kishitani Shinra? He went to middle school with me."

"Damn four eyes tells random people my name." Shizuo grumbled irritably, and growing slightly frustrated, because the dark haired boy wasn't giving him his lighter back.

"I've known Shinra for a few years, so I'm hardly 'random people'." Izaya said, though he didn't sound defensive at all. To Shizuo, he seemed like the kind of person who deeply believed himself to be very important.

"Don't know about that. I don't think he told me about you, though." Shizuo said grumpily.

"How could you be certain about that without even knowing my name?" The shorter boy asked, smiling. Shizuo frowned slightly, having a sinking feeling that maybe Shinra _had_told him about the person before him.

"What is your name?" Shizuo asked, convinced that Izaya merely wanted the blond to show interest in him.

"I'm Orihara Izaya." Yup, that was the one alright. The one Shinra had told him about and described as _creepy, extremely intelligent, potentially dangerous, and quite frankly insane, but also a ton of fun to hang around, and an useful ally_.

"Might've mentioned you some time or another." Shizuo grumbled, noticing Izaya's smirk widening.

"See? I think this calls for the American way of defining allies and enemies." Izaya said this so naturally that it was not even noticable that he was aware of how little Shizuo knew what he meant.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Shizuo said calmly. Anyone who made him feel stupid, or tried to make him feel inferior, would have usually had some one on one time with any heavy object in the vincinity by now, but the blond student felt, despite being irritated, a weird kind of interest in the other boy.

This Orihara boy had just seen him being as violent as he could get, yet he had shrugged it off, completely unfazed, and had taken his side immediately.

Shizuo was way too used to the insulting, fearful looks he received whenever he lost control of his anger, and he was deeply relieved that there seemed to be one person in this world, that didn't fear him despite that or look at him like he was some kind of fascinating freak of nature.

"My bad." The taller boy wasn't sure whether Izaya was pretending to be sorry about not having made clear what he meant, but he appreciated the effort. He had expected to be laughed at for being poorly educated.

Of course, Izaya did exactly that, only he kept his insane witch cackle at bay and mocked the blond in his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

"I meant that, since you are Shinra's friend you can be my friend as well because _he_ is my friend, and the other way around. And, if you have an enemy, they are my enemy too, because _you _are my friend. It's what the Americans did during the cold war."

It took Shizuo a second to fully understand, and Izaya was partially glad that the blond probably didn't know what the cold war was either, because that meant that he wouldn't have to explain, why this way of thinking was appropriate in this situation, because it hadn't really worked out too well for America and the Sovjet Union.

"I guess." Shizuo answered, not particularily interested, though he wasn't technically _against_ the dark haired boy's suggestions. He didn't have any friends here, and he was rather lonely, which convinced him that he would be able to stand Izaya's company, simply because there was no one else who wanted to be his friend.

"Heiwajima!" Both their heads turned towards the principal's shrill voice. "In my office!" The furious woman yelled, looking at the broken wall and vending machine, and at the passed out student who was lying just in the middle of the hallway with their homeroom teacher trying to shake him awake.

"Gotta go." Shizuo said, not particularily happy that he would probably get another week of staying after school and cleaning windows.

The dark haired boy grinned once more, and got closer to Shizuo, which made the blond realize that Izaya wasn't actually that short. He reached his nose, at least.

Izaya reached out and put the lighter into Shizuo's palm, their fingers touching for a moment, before the shorter boy moved out of the way.

"I'll see you around~" Izaya said cheerfully and was gone within the blink of an eye, making Shizuo wonder if he had imagined the other's presence, because he had never seen someone move so quickly before.

And he knew everything about fast movements, seen as most of the time people were running for their dear lives at the mere sight of him, at least the really gutless ones.

About half an hour and a lot of talk about _consequences _and other big words he didn't really understand, Shizuo, now proud window cleaner for another week, headed towards his classroom, arriving just when the bell rang.

Their homeroom teacher, who everyone agreed was one of the creepiest creatures they had ever seen, began to speak once everyone had settled down.

Shizuo didn't really pay attention because he noticed that the desk next to him, which had been empty just the day before, was now occupied by none other than the weird, but also sort of fascinating guy he had talked to earlier.

The teacher scribbled what appeared to be the kanji of someone's name onto the blackboard and wrote the hiragana beneath them, so everyone could understand how to pronounce it.

"We have a new student, his name is Orihara Izaya." The teacher said, bored except for that interested glint in his eyes, which he directed towards the new student, ignoring the class nerd, who had raised his hand to tell the teacher that he must have made a mistake when writing down the name.

"Get up, _please_." The last word sounded out of place, because all the students were used to their teacher being rather rude to them.

Izaya got up, obviously not nervous at all, as everyone turned to look at him.

In the sunlight that flooded through the window he was standing next to, his brown eyes turned a lively shade of red, and his washed out, pale complexion turned golden, while his black hair glistened.

The harsh shadows that were caused by the light source that hit him from only one side, emphasized the even proportions of his face.

His eyes were just narrow enough to make him look mischievous, his straight nose's tip pointing upwards, hinting at the fact that he rather liked poking said olfactory organ into many affairs, mostly not his own, and his lips formed a polite smile, that still had something impish about it.


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm Orihara Izaya, it's nice to meet you." Izaya said with a very short bow and looked like he tried hard not to laugh his ass off at the other students' expressions.

There was silence for a moment, in which every student took his time to take in the sight, before some of them nodded a greeting, while others wolf whistled in appreciation, which caused Shizuo to frown just a little.

Since it was a boys only school, the female pendant to this institution being a few miles away, most of the hormonal boys and young men hadn't really seen anything other than zit blasted, sweaty, greasy haired guys for quite some time, so that looking at someone so clean, fresh and pretty was something that pleased them and caused their hormones to run rampant.

Izaya did not appear to be fazed by the impact he had on his classmates, though Shizuo could definitely tell that he was not oblivious to it. In fact, Shizuo assumed that the dark haired boy was never oblivious to anything, though he knew it was paranoid to think that Izaya was omniscient.

During the two gruellingly boring math lessons, Shizuo caught himself looking to his left every once in a while in interest, watching Izaya draw complicated symbols, which had absolutely nothing to do with math, into his notebook and looking around the classroom in interest, scanning every student and throwing Shizuo a smile when he noticed him looking, that made the blond avert his gaze immediately.

In English class, Izaya was asked to introduce himself in English, which he seemed to speak flawlessly, surpassing even their teacher in skill, and consequently making the elderly woman who was only a few years away from retirement feel like all the effort she had put into learning the language had been completely in vain, because someone who was a fourth her age spoke the language more fluently than her.

She praised his skill and smiled at Izaya forcedly, while something within her crumbled and fell apart.

From the way Izaya grinned back at her like a kitty that had just taken over another cat's territory, Shizuo knew exactl, that the brunet was very well aware of what went on in their teacher's head.

It would have made Shizuo emphasize with the old witch, if it hadn't been for the massive amount of homework she told them to finish until tomorrow a few seconds later.

The school bell announcing lunch break brought Shizuo back to life and he was the first to leave the classroom, barely listening to the teacher asking Izaya to stay a little longer.

Somehow, Shizuo ended up waiting for the other boy, without really knowing what drove him to do so.

"Oh hey, thanks for waiting." Izaya said amicably after spotting Shizuo and quickly catching up, as the blond started to walk away.

"Hm." Shizuo grumbled in acknowledgment, while they approached the end of the hallway.

"I'm gonna give you a nickname." The dark haired boy announced happily, his steps bouncy despite the heavy bag that hung from one of his shoulders.

"Don't need one." The blond replied, slightly annoyed, but still, deep down, kind of glad that he wasn't alone.

"Hmm, how about Shizu-chan." Izaya didn't sound like he had just spontaneously come up with the nickname. Shizuo had the slight suspicion that the shorter boy had wanted to call him that the moment he had heard his name.

"Nah." Shizuo said, expecting Izaya to maybe argue a little, then give up and search for another nickname, but he was proven wrong.

"Shizu-chan it is." Shizuo looked at the other boy threateningly but the brunet was smiling again and nodding his head, while he repeated the ridiculous nickname.

"Absolutely not." The blond grunted, slightly offended. "Sounds fucking fruity."

"Aw, come on, let me have a little fun here." Izaya pouted childishly. "Besides, if you care that much about not being perceived as gay, it makes you all the more homo."

Shizuo snapped, grabbing Izaya by the scruff of his neck and lifting him up a few centimeters, so that they were on eyelevel. The taller student was slightly surprised by how light Izaya was. Even someone who did not have as much strength as Shizuo could have easily picked Izaya up.

"Don't call me that ever again." Shizuo growled, looking into Izaya's amused eyes one second, and grabbing onto thin air the next.


	7. Chapter 7

Izaya hopped away gracefully and with surprising ease that probably resulted form his light weight.

"You can come up with a nickname for me, too." He suggested, unbothered by the fact that his _friend_ had just gotten close to choking him.

Shizuo was angry for a few seconds and felt the urge to run towards the shorter boy, throw him to the ground and kick him a little, but he suddenly had a very, very good idea for a nickname and that put him in a better mood.

"Yeah, I've got a nickname for you." He said, grinning. "How about _louse_. 'Cause you're like an annoying itch I can't get rid of, and you're small. Or _flea_, 'cause you're fast and good at jumping."

"...but those are parasites." Izaya muttered, pouting like a sulking child.

"Exactly." Shizuo chuckled. "It's perfect, right, _louse_."

Izaya didn't react to the taunt and merely shrugged.

"Fine by me, Shizu-_chan_." He drawled and his grin resurfaced, while the feeling of accomplishment left Shizuo immediately.

"Whatever. Let's just go eat now." The blond muttered. "Did you bring lunch or do you want to buy something at the cafeteria?"

"I brought lunch...well, yesterday's left overs." Izaya said, more seriously now.

"Good. Let's go up on the roof. It's a nice, calm place." Shizuo said almost dreamily as they climbed the stairs.

"Wow, you can see the entire city from up here!" Izaya said excitedly, walking dangerously close to the broken railing while Shizuo unpacked his lunch and inconspicuously threw slightly worried looks Izaya's way. "I can see my aparment!"

"Just sit down and eat, will you?" Shizuo grumbled, having settled down on the roof relatively far away from the broken fence that had once been there to protect people from falling down.

"How can you not appreciate this view?" Izaya asked astonishedly, without being able to rip his eyes away from the sea of buildings and streets.

"Well, I do, I just don't jump around like a crazy person and endanger my life to show it." Still, Shizuo found it refreshing to see someone express their joy so openly.

In a time where everyone strived to be 'cool', which basically meant being an emotionless, rude, disrespectful and inconsiderate jerk, someone like Izaya was refreshing...although Shizuo somehow knew, without even knowing Izaya for long, that the brunet could be a huge asshole, too, and that he could consider himself lucky to be on the dark haired boy's good side for now.

Izaya was the kind of brainiac who played mind games with people he disliked, which was more damaging than hitting them in the face a couple of times at least if you asked Shizuo.

Reluctantly, Izaya turned around and sat down next to Shizuo, unpacking a lunch box, which contained two cold slices of pizza, the prefabricated kind that one put into the microwave for a couple of minutes until it was done.

Meanwhile, Shizuo's lunch consisted of some onigiri and an omelett his mother had prepared for him, and the blond instinctively knew that Izaya was probably not familiar with having a mother cook and care for you.

"Do you live with your parents?" The 'flea' asked, nibbling at a piece of pizza unenthusiastically.

"Yeah. With my parents and my little brother." Shizuo answered lowly, hoping he didn't sound smug in any way. "What about you?"

"I live on my own." Izaya said, perfectly masking any kind of gloom Shizuo somehow knew he felt. "It's awesome, I can eat whatever and whenever I want. There's no one to tell me when to go to bed, when to stop playing video games, or to study more."

Shizuo was not really impressed by Izaya's long explanation, because the fact that Izaya had felt the need to explain how great living alone was, only made Shizuo suspect even more that the brunet wasn't as happy with it as he tried to seem.

"So where are you parents?" Shizuo asked, after swallowing down vaguely flavored rice. Izaya shifted just a little.

"My mother works in the US, and my sisters live with her. They're twins and they turned 6 just last month."


	8. Chapter 8

Izaya pulled his wallet out of his pocket and took out a picture depicting two small, brown haired girls. One with short, spiky hair, and one pigtails that barely reached her shoulders. Even though they didn't have the same hairstyle and one of them was wearing glasses, their faces looked exactly the same, despite the eerily familiar smile that grazed the longer haired twin's face.

"Cute." Shizuo commented. "So that's why you're so good in English, huh?"

"Yeah. Mairu and Kururi were just learning to talk when they moved to the US, so they can't really speak or understand much Japanese anymore." Izaya shoved the photograph, which, just by looking at it, Shizuo could tell was at least 2 years old, back into his wallet after running his index finger over it affectionately.

"Your mother doesn't speak Japanese with them?" Shizuo asked, interested in the way Izaya's smile had turned soft and honest for just a moment.

"Nah, apparently not." The brunet said nonchalantly.

"What about when they visit you? If they can't understand Japanese, they'll get lost here in Tokyo."

"They don't really visit that often." Izaya conceded, taking a sip from his water bottle. "Flight's expensive, you know."

"Uh huh." Shizuo grumbled, realizing that all this time, there was one topic Izaya had skillfully avoided talking about.

"What about your father?"

Right then, there was a change in Izaya's whole stature and expression, and even though it was subtle Shizuo still managed to catch it.

Somehow, the flea's shoulders slumped a little and for a moment, he averted his eyes.

"He's in jail." The shorter boy said clearly, drinking a little water, if only to seem less tense.

"Seriously? What for?" Shizuo had to admit he hadn't seen that coming.

"Ah, apparently he got drunk and raped someone, I don't really know any details, luckily." Izaya smiled very, very lightly and slightly apologetically and Shizuo sensed that the younger boy was ashamed of what his father had done.

"Man, that sucks." The blond didn't know what else to say since he himself lived such a relatively normal life. Sure, his parents fought sometimes, and he and his brother didn't get along all too well every now and then, but apart from the fact that his extreme strength drove everyone away he really had nothing to complain about.

"I'm kinda glad I don't have to live with him anymore. We never really got along anyway." Izaya said, sounding rather used to the fact that people didn't seem to like him too much.

Shizuo had to admit that deep down, he didn't like this person either. It was still too early to tell but he did enjoy spending time with Izaya because there was a strange familiarity between them, as if they had known each other all their lives.

The blond boy had the sinking feeling that he would either come to really like the dark haired student or start to hate his guts.

"Wanna come to my place after school?" Izaya asked suddenly, closing his lunchbox just as the school bell rang, announcing the end of lunch break. Shizuo was taken completely abac, by how quickly the time had passed and by Izaya's invite.

"Sure." The blond student said. Since he only had one friend, Shinra, it didn't occur often that he was invited into someone else's home, and it made him rather happy.

"How far away is your apartment?" Shizuo asked after the final two lessons as they approached the main exit.

"It's about 10 minutes away...Man, I'm glad to finally be out of here. Doesn't this school remind you of prison, too?"

Shizuo found the question rather strange, though he could see the resemblances.

"How can you tell? Have you ever been to prison?" Shizuo decided to ask instead of simply agreeing.

"Eh? Nah, not really. I was there as a visitor once." Izaya replied, heaving a sigh once they had left the heavy portals of the school's entrance behind them, as if the air out here was any better than the one he had been breathing in just a second ago.

"Why did they make you go to this school?" Shizuo asked rather suddenly.


	9. Chapter 9

When Shizuo had heard that a new student was joining them, he had expected your average petty criminal, who had been caught stealing a couple of times and was too stupid to attend a normal school, someone who you only had to look at to know he had problems.

"Well, my switchblade, _purely by accident_ of course, buried itself in some dude's leg." Izaya shrugged, a sugary smile on his lips. His red eyes glistened like fresh blood as he basked in fond memories of said _accident_.

Shizuo's mouth fell open and he had a _Holy fucking shit, this guy is a fucking maniac _moment, and was suddenly more than nervous about entering this person's home.

The blond wasn't really worried about his own well being because he was, well _him_. He could throw trucks, vending machines, and rip out street signs, so there was no way someone as skinny as Izaya could do anything to him, switchblade or not.

It still freaked him out because chances are that Izaya kept a nice collection of human heads, or fingers, or something equally horrifying in his fridge.

"That guy must've really wronged you, huh?" Shizuo asked, a small bead of sweat making its way down the side of his face.

"It was self defense. I love humans too much to intentionally hurt them." The statement was so strange, that the blond decided not to reply to it.

Maybe Izaya was quoting some novel or tv show now, because no 16 year old boy just randomly said that he _loved humans_, because that made one think that the one who said this was something above a human being, who treated humans like pets.

And Izaya was very obviously human, unless he somehow hid horns in his dark hair.

For just a second, the blond boy found himself peering at the top of the brunet's head to check, but naturally, there were no horns to be found.

Shizuo contemplated asking what the poor stabbing victim had done to Izaya to deserve the attack but he decided against it, because he really didn't want to see more of the younger boy's creepy, sadistic behavior.

The apartment building they approached was far from nice and it was situated in the 'dark' part of town, where you had to watch where you walked and always had to look over your shoulder in case someone was following you with the intention of robbing you.

A small flight of stairs led to the front door. The front yard they crossed was dirty and decorated by several garbage bags, car tires, broken furniture and some more waste.

Some parts of the ground looked like someone had dug a hole recently and then covered it back up, and Shizuo wouldn't have been too surprised if there was a corpse rotting a couple of feet underneath the burnt looking patch of grass he was standing on.

The ground level apartment's window was smashed, shards of glass lying on the small porch in front of the entrance.

Shizuo stopped when they had reached the wooden front door, which had holes in it and looked like it was molding, and waited for Izaya to pull out his keys.

Izaya took a step back, confusing Shizuo quite a lot and making him just slightly suspicious that something dangerous might come out of this door, which would explain why the dark haired boy was steping back.

However, the smaller boy gathered speed and then kicked down the door rather violently, making it tumble inwards and fall onto the ground, whirling up some dust.

"After you." Izaya said, stepping to the side and bowing jokingly.

The house didn't look any better on the inside, Shizuo noted, observing the locker like mail boxes of which most were apparently unused and had been left open carelessly.

The stairs leading upwards looked like they were about to give out any second and large parts of the railing were missing.

Izaya walked passed him and climbed the stairs noiselessly, whereas the wooden steps groaned in protest under Shizuo's weight when he followed.

"Here we are." The shorter boy said once they had reached the third floor, stopping in front of apartment 302 and looking almost proudly at the fading numbers on the door.

"Apartment 302. I picked it only because of the number." Izaya told Shizuo, distracting the older boy from the way the hallway was illuminated by the sun that shone through cracks in the ceiling.

"302? What, that your birthday or something?" Shizuo asked, making sure to put as much distance between him and the broken railing as possible, lest he fell down three stories.

"Ah, no. That's something out of a video game I've played." The brunet replied, thankfully without going into detail, because to Shizuo he seemed like the kind of person who liked to ramble on and on about such things without caring much if the person he was talking to was interest in what he was saying or not.

This time, Izaya _unlocked_ the front door and opened it in an entirely normal manner.


	10. Chapter 10

Nothing inside the apartment fit together, but Shizuo could only say that he was glad that there, for once, were no broken down walls, perforated ceilings, or smashed windows.

The walls were a dirty shade of gray that had probably once been clean white and the paint was coming off in little flakes, the wooden floor creaked, and Shizuo only reluctantly removed his shoes, because he was very sure he would step into splinters if he walked bare foot.

The kitchen and living room were basically one room only vaguely separated by the kitchen counter, yet there was something else distinguishing the two parts of the room.

While the kitchen area was as run down as one could expect when looking at the house's general condition, with a refrigerator that looked like it was older than the apartments inhabitant, and a sink that was rusted, the living room did not necessarily look any better, but the huge flat screen TV standing about two meters away from a sofa whose cushions were torn with the filling hanging out, seemed definitely out of place.

The several game consoles in front of the large TV also didn't fit into this run down hell hole, making the blond boy wonde, just how someone who had to live in a place like _this_ could possibly afford such expensive electronic devices.

What Shizuo also noticed was that the place wasn't dirty, dusty or in any way unhygienic, meaning that Izaya kept it as clean as possible.

Izaya was meanwhile standing in front of the refrigerator and looking at its contents, and the taller student had to note that the fridge was rather empty, but at least it looked very clean.

It somehow relieved him to know that he at least wouldn't get any weird diseases just from touching stuff here.

"I'm afraid I don't have the ingredients to cook anything for dinner." The dark haired boy said, closing the refrigerator and watching the blond boy observe his surroundings. "We could go grocery shopping."

Shizuo was too distracted by the play station 3 he had just caught sight of to really listen to Izaya.

It didn't seem to bother the younger boy as he turned towards his phone, a red light flashing and indicating that someone had left a voice mail. Curiously he pressed the button to listen to it and froze when he heard the female voice that greeted him.

_[Hello, Izaya-kun. This is Dr. Hatake. You've missed another one of your appointments, so I wanted to ask if everything's alright, and if you've been taking your medication properly. Please call me back so we can make another appointment. Have a nice day.]_

Shizuo, who had been inspecting the TV curiously, somehow expecting it to be fake, looked up in interest upon hearing the message, noticing Izaya shift uncomfortably for a second, before he seemed to regain his composure and swiftly deleted the message.

"It's just my doctor. I've been having a mild case of anemia lately, so she wants to check if I've been taking my iron pills." The dark haired boy explained hastily, without Shizuo even asking. His eyes were strangely piercing, as if he hoped to be able to burn what he had just said into the blond student's mind so he would never ever ask any questions about this.

"Okay." The blond said, just a little confused by how much this one voice mail had thrown Izaya off balance.

"No big deal at all. I don't like having to go see a doctor. Just the way they look at you... as if they expect you to spontaneously combust or something." Izaya added.

"Who would spontaneously combust from having aen— what was that stuff called again?" And with that question, the smile made a brilliant comeback with Izaya's face as its stage, and he even chuckled a little, making Shizuo feel rather stupid.

"Anemia. Means I don't have as many red blood cells as I should have. It's a rather common disorder." The smaller boy explained. "About dinner. Want to come grocery shopping with me?"

"Sure, why not." Shizuo agreed, surprised by the fact that something as mundane as bying groceries actually sounded like fun when doing it together, or rather, doing it with this person in particular.

Izaya was already putting on his shoes and jacket, when Shizuo remembered something.


	11. Chapter 11

"Oh, can I use your phone to tell my parents where I am? I'm sure they'll throw a hissy fit if I come home late and they don't know where I've been."

"Sure, go ahead." Izaya said, sounding surprised enough at the request to make Shizuo feel slightly bad for mentioning his parents in the first place, because the dark haired boy didn't even seem to know the feeling of having someone who waited for you to come home and got worried if you didn't.

"Hello, Heiwajima speaking." His mother's voice greeted him.

"Hey mom. I'm at a—" for just a second he didn't know what to call Izaya exactly. " friend's house. Just wanted to let you know that I won't be home for dinner, if that's okay."

"Are you at Shinra's place?" His mother asked curiously, because it didn't exactly happen often that Shizuo visited a friend, seen as he didn't really have many of those, and that he and Shinra hadn't really seen each other for at least a month.

"Eh, no. It's a new student from my school." Shizuo said, practically hearing his mother's inner squeal when she heard that he had made a new friend.

"Oh, you finally made a friend there? What's his name?"

"Mom, we're kinda about to leave to buy dinner, I'll tell you later." Shizuo muttered, trying to make this phone call as short as possible, because Izaya was already waiting for him.

"Oh come on, you can at least tell me his name, dear." His mother said good naturedly, and Shizuo knew that she would ask him about his new _friend _later anyway, because just going to that school meant that he couldn't be a completely normal guy, and that always worried Mrs. Heiwajima.

"Fine. His name's fl—Izaya." He had almost said flea, because he found that name to be more fitting.

"So, is he a reasonable person?" _God_ no, but he was fun to be with, just like Shinra had said.

"He's an old friend of Shinra's and went to school with him until last month." Was Shizuo's rather vague answer.

"—Okay then, just stay out of trouble, okay? And be here by 10 PM. I don't want you being outside too late." The blond boy's mother said, knowing full well that Shinra himself was not the most _reasonable _guy, and that anyone who was friends with him couldn't be too sensible either.

"Yeah. Bye."

Staying out of trouble didn't seem to fit with what Izaya had planned though, apparently, because upon entering the small convenience store across the street, he told Shizuo in a hushed voice to 'keep a low profile', while he started to take things off the shelves and shove them into a backpack he had taken with him to hide the stolen goods.

"Are you fucking insane?" Shizuo hissed, trying to tear a pack of cereal out of the younger boy's grip, while looking around for cameras or store detectives.

Considering how old and run down the store was, it was unlikely that the owner, who was a man in his late forties with graying hair sitting at the checkout and reading the newspaper, had taken any safety measures.

"What is it, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asked good naturedly, as if he wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, which made it painfully obvious how used to doing this he was.

"You're stealing! What if someone catches you?" Shizuo snapped, eyebrows twitching in anger when the dark haired boy just kept on stuffing things into the bag without even bothering to look around if someone else noticed.

"I gotta save money. The state isn't exactly generous, you know." The brunet mentioned while shamelessly dropping two bottles into the backpack.

They turned a corner and Shizuo almost had a heart attack when they almost walked into a girl about their age.

She was too thin for someone her height, and her skin was very pale, except for several bruises spreading over her cheek bones and jaw, making her look sick and unhappy.

However, upon seeing Izaya, a smile spread over her face, looking like something rare and precious, making her entire face come to life and bringing out her beauty that was overshadowed by how sick she looked.

* * *

><p><em>Btw, the OC is most likely never going to appear again and has no real relevance to the plot^^<em>


	12. Chapter 12

"It's been a while, Izaya-kun." Her voice was soft and she threw a nervous glance at the shop owner, who still sat in the same position as a few minutes ago and seemed oblivious to anything but the newspaper in his hands.

"Hey." Izaya said cheerfully.

"Your mom still didn't send the money she promised you half a year ago?" She asked, her smile turning playful as she glanced down at the backpack Izaya was carrying.

"Not yet." The brunet said, sounding completely unbothered by the fact that this girl knew that he was shop lifting. "Anger management doesn't seem to have helped your father much in controlling his rage."

Her smile didn't falter, but she glimpsed at the shop owner for a moment, and it was then that Shizuo knew that she was his daughter.

"Not yet." She mimicked Izaya's earlier reply. Shizuo's mouth opened and closed as he took in all of this.

From what it looked like, Izaya and this girl knew each other rather well, and she was the shop owner's daughter, who let Izaya steal from her father to get back at him for hitting her.

"I can distract him while you leave, if you want." She offered kindly, and Shizuo found it extremely callous of Izaya to keep on smiling at her like that, when he _knew_ what she was going through and didn't even make any attempt at helping her.

"I was just gonna buy something small and cheap so he won't think that I'm taking stuff for free, but it's even better that way." Izaya mentioned, zipping the by now more than full backpack closed, and Shizuo somehow doubted the shop owner could possibly be so stupid as to not get suspicious if someone walked out of the shop with a full bag when they had entered with an empty backpack.

"Well, you can save that money then."

"Thanks a lot, Kurumi." For once, Izaya sounded completely earnest, a tender smile on his lips that expressed his gratitude and Shizuo was dumbfounded at how naturally pretty he looked that way — and just a second later, he was shocked at his own thoughts.

"No problem, Izaya-kun. I'll see you around." She said politely, giving the dark haired boy a short hug and bowing to Shizuo briefly, before approaching her father and engaging him in some conversation.

"Alright, let's go." Izaya muttered, hugging the backpack to his body with two arms and briskly walking towards the exit.

Shizuo felt like his feet were glued to the floor for a second, before he followed Izaya, a drop of sweat running down his chin as he nervously looked at the shop owner, who was talking to his daughter in a surprisingly friendly tone of voice.

His heartbeat increased sending blood rushing through his veins, fear and excitement causing his steps to speed up as soon as the entrance was in sight.

He expected something to happen once he walked through the shop's open door, waited for some sort of alarm, even though Izaya, who was carrying the stolen goods had already made it outside savely.

Nothing happened, and once they were outside and had put some distance between themselves and the store, Shizuo stopped, exhaling deeply, as if he had just run a marathon.

"Holy fuck." The blond boy gasped, causing Izaya to turn around and look at him, his eyes displaying surprise.

"Eh, that your first time breaking the law?" The dark haired boy asked. There was something distinctly cocky about the way he asked. Like Shizuo was uncool for not stealing every other day.

"Well, I did destroy a lot of stuff. I've never stolen anything, though." Shizuo admitted. Izaya seemed to be in a very good mood.

"Ahaha, well, I wouldn't want to say you're missing out on something but—" Izaya's eyes glinted almost sadistically while the smile on his lips twisted into a vicious smirk. "There's nothing quite like that rush you get when you go through the door. There's always a chance of being caught, but it's the chance of not being caught that really excites me."

"I'm pretty sure he would've caught us if it hadn't been for that girl." Shizuo mentioned.


	13. Chapter 13

"Ah, indeed. I guess she's trying to get back at him in some way for what he does to her." The younger boy said, sounding cruelly unbothered, even though Shizuo could tell that Izaya didn't intentionally mean to sound like he didn't care.

What did strike Shizuo as odd though, was the fact that Izaya made it sound as if domestic violence was something completely normal.

"That bastard has obviously been hitting her. Don't you think we should have done something to help her? Like, call the cops or something?" The taller student suggested, feeling guilty when remembering the black and blue bruises that tainted her beautiful face.

Izaya laughed wholeheartedly.

"Ahahaha, yeah, we should have definitely called the police. In fact, we should have just waited there for them to arrive, unfortunately, the _stolen_ popsicles in my bag would have melted."

"You don't have to laugh at me. I just believe that we should have done _something_ to help her. She seems like a nice girl, and she doesn't deserve to be treated that way." Shizuo reasoned, even while anger was starting to boil in the pit of his stomach. The flea dared to laugh at him!

"Sounds like Shizu-chan is in love." Izaya snorted, calming down slowly and wiping small tears from the corners of his almost red eyes.

Shizuo was taken by surprise by that statement, and blushed a second later with an irritated look on his face.

"Bullshit. I'm just surprised, no _appalled _by how little you care about that girl, even though the two of you seem to be friends. To be honest, it makes you seem like a dick." Shizuo exclaimed honestly, not necessarily intending to offend anyone. He just said what he thought out loud.

Izaya was quiet for a moment, concentration visible on his face as he thought about what the older boy had said. Shizuo half expected him to stay silent and sulk for the rest of the evening, when suddenly, the dark haired student's eyes met his.

There was something very cold in those dark red eyes that made Shizuo shiver inwardly.

"It's nothing unusual around here. A lot of parents hit their children and no one even knows about it, it's really nothing out of the ordinary. Besides, that's not the worst a parent can do to you." The look in Izaya's eyes when he said that last sentence was one of such despair, that Shizuo froze for a moment.

It was such an eerie, unsettling sight, that he could still picture that pair of haunted eyes even when he lay in his bed and tried to fall asleep hours later.

For now, though, he felt the need to express how abnormal he thought it was to think that domestic violence was something acceptable.

"You're telling me that, if your parents treated you like that, you wouldn't want someone to help you? That you'd just accept it and wouldn't want to do anything to change your situation?"

"Silly Shizu-chan. My parents never did anything like that to me, because they were never around." Shizuo was somehow completely sure that this was a lie. He was scared to ask Izaya about it, though, because he didn't want to have to see that look in the other boy's eyes ever again.

"It's just hard to believe that stuff like this happens and no one cares enough to help the victims!" Shizuo said almost desperately. Izaya sighed.

"You just need to accept that not everyone was brought up in an environment as safe as yours and had parents who took care of them and loved them." What Izaya said made Shizuo feel incredibly stupid. "Besides, even if we called the cops, I'm pretty sure Kurumi would smile and tell them about how she tripped and fell down a flight of stairs. And then we'd be in trouble for falsely accusing someone of a crime."

"Why would she lie? She must hate him for hurting her, so shouldn't she be willing to do anything to get him locked up in jail?" Shizuo had stopped walking unconsciously.

"Ahh, hating your parents is something way more complicated, no matter how badly they treat you. He can probably be very nice to her, too. Sometimes he just gets really angry and lets it out on her. He probably regrets it afterwards and treats her extra friendly...until it happens again." Izaya seemed to be far to intimately familiar with this strange cycle of sorts.

"I still think she should tell the police so they'll get her out of there."


	14. Chapter 14

"It's never easy to admit something like that. Being the victim is something most people are ashamed of, because every human being searches for reasons when bad things happen to them, and if they can't find one, they'll start to feel like there has to be something wrong with _them_ that makes them deserve to be _punished _like this. And that must mean they have some kind of flaw, which must not ever be shown to anyone else, because others might abandon them or take advantage of their weakness."

"I don't believe that girl has to be weak, because of what her father does to her." Shizuo tried to clarify. It was hard to keep up with everything Izaya was saying, because Shizuo had never even thought about things like that.

"Ah, but still you immediately felt the urge to rescue her when you saw her." Izaya deducted and Shizuo glared at him in bewilderment, because the younger boy was saying nothing but the truth. It was hard to argue against that.

"The bottom line is that she needs to decide for herself if it's worth enduring the pain he inflicts on her when he's angry. It's something she must do herself, because if she doesn't come to her own rescue and someone else does it for her, the feeling of powerlessness and weakness is going to haunt her forever."

Izaya seemed deeply content to be able to lecture Shizuo like this. It made the blond boy feel the need to unsettle him a little, to pull him down from his high horse and make him realize that he was not as far above everyone else as he seemed to think he was right now.

"Don't you know a little too much about that?" Shizuo asked, watching Izaya carefully, as the dark haired boy unlocked his apartment's front foor. The blond boy was slightly surprised that they were already back, because he hadn't even paid attention to where they were going.

Now that he thought about it, he also hadn't noticed that darkness had fallen by now, and through the hole in the ceiling, he could see a few stars sparkle in the midnight blue night sky.

It was such a devastating, miserable sight, and at the same time so beautiful, that Shizuo completely forgot where he was and what he was doing, entranced by the sight of a pathetic, dilapidated building, and the eery light of the stars outside, which Shizuo saw less often than the glow of the commercial billboards at night.

It was a contrast extreme enough for him not to find a comparison at first.

Then his eyes caught sight of the smaller boy, who was fumbling with his keys, and thought that maybe, the way Izaya's pitch black hair didn't match his ivory skin, and at the same time did in an undeniably attractive way, or the auburn eyes that looked so experienced and all knowing, while his face was still slightly round like that of a child's, practically everything about the other boy also contradicted itself just like the beauty of the stars shining into this run down hell hole.

Izaya kept silent while he pushed open the door, looking like he was trying hard to decide what to say. In the end, the slightly troubled look on his face was pushed away forcefully and replaced with another smug grin.

"Who do you think she goes to each time after he beats her up?" He asked in a far too cheerful voice that couldn't fool Shizuo entirely.

It took the blond a few seconds to remember what they had been talking about in the first place, until it came back to him.

"So you do care at least a little." The blond boy concluded, while Izaya was packing away the stolen groceries.

"Well, I do what I can. I patch her up, I let her cry on my shoulder if she wants to, or I give her some happy pills, those always work." Shizuo's eyes widened and he looked at Izaya in shock, who handed him the box of cereal and motioned for him to place it on the top shelf.

"You're giving that girl drugs?" Shizuo asked threateningly.

"Well, sometimes. She's usually content with staying here and having sex all night, but if she needs that extra high, then who am I to—" Izaya's carefree banter was interrupted by the sound of Shizuo dropping the cereal box, which caused Izaya to turn around and look at him in surprise.

"Shizu-chan?"

The older boy's face was flushed bright red, and he looked as if he had just seen a ghost.


	15. Chapter 15

"Shiiii~zu-chan!" Izaya called out in a nerve grating voice, having the audacity to extend his hand and poke the blond student's cheek several times. "What's gotten into you?"

The tall boy remained sullenly silent as a frown spread over his red face.

The fact that Izaya had sex with that girl was, for some reason, more bizarre and hard to swallow than him giving her drugs.

"You look as if you'd seen a dead person come back to life." Izaya muttered, oblivious to the fact that something within Shizuo's system had just _crashed_. "The spirit of Walter Sullivan remains in this apartment, where he shall forever search for his mother who abandoned him." Shizuo paid no mind to the ridiculous voice Izaya was using to talk.

He was jealous, to say the least. Jealous, because he had thought Izaya was worse off than him in almost every way, and in a sick and twisted way, that had comforted him a little and had made him feel good about himself and his life for a change.

"_And he shall haunt random pieces of furniture to make his presence known while his corpse is rotting in a secret room behind my bathroom wall, so he can always spy on me in the shower._ Am I scaring you yet, Shizu-chan?"

How could it be that this short and still somewhat childish looking boy, who needed to stay on his fucking tiptoes to reach the upper shelf, was already so far ahead of him in some aspects of life, and made it sound so ridiculously easy to just get some girl to like you and get her into bed.

Shizuo had never even hugged a female, apart from his mother and his aunt who came to visit every few years, girls seemed to try their best to avoid any interaction with him, so he had absolutely no experience when it came to sex, which took a considerable toll on his self-esteem.

And therefore, knowing that sex was something completely normal to Izaya, when he hadn't ever experienced it himself frustrated him, because he felt like he had lost some sort of race to Izaya. And yes, it was a big deal to him, for reasons he couldn't really figure out himself.

"You...sleep with her?" He said, swallowing down embarrassment and shame, while interrupting Izaya's ramblings mid-sentence.

"Oh hey, you're back." Izaya noticed, flashing him a smile. "You should see a doctor if you space out like that often. This one guy I knew had those strange moments where he would just drift away, and some day he suddenly had a seizure and cracked his head open on a table. He died on the way to the hospital."

"You sleep with that girl?" Shizuo asked, not paying attention to the sad fact Izaya was revealing to him with a bright smile on his face.

"Huh? Yeah, why not? We've been doing it on and off for as long as we've known each other." Izaya said easily, and Shizuo was envious of the way Izaya could just say such things so openly, making the most horrible things seem normal while he continued to smile like that, bitterly and at the same time almost gratefully. It was also devastating.

"For how long have you known her?" The blond boy inquired slightly uncomfortably, because by now he knew that, whenever he asked Izaya a question, he was going to get a disturbing answer, only that the brunet made it sound like the most normal thing in the world.

"Hm, I think I've known her for about 3 years now. Yeah, almost 3 years." The prospect of two 13 year old children getting it on with each other was shocking to Shizuo.

"That's disgusting." Shizuo muttered, feeling vaguely sick, because at the age of 13, you were supposed to still watch cartoons for children and drink your milk every morning so you'd grow tall and strong.

"What makes you say that?" Izaya asked incredulously and Shizuo felt like shoving his stupid, still maturing face into the slowly heating pan he was using to fry eggs.

"That's not something children should do." Shizuo explained, though he knew that Izaya wasn't going to be convinced by something like that. However, the dark haired boy wasn't smiling right now, which meant that he was either thinking about what he was going to say next, or displeased with Shizuo's reply.

"But how do you tell an adult from a child? Is there really a point in your life when you can safely say that you have turned into an adult?" Izaya inquired, one slim, ebony eyebrow raised, giving Shizuo no time to even think of a reply, as he continued to talk.

"Isn't a child someone who depends on parents or guardians and is helpless without them? So, someone who has lived on their own and taken care of themselves all along shouldn't be considered a child anymore, right?" This time, Izaya didn't continue, looking at Shizuo expectantly.


	16. Chapter 16

"I— I really don't know." Shizuo confessed, standing rooted to one spot while Izaya was casually cooking their dinner. Heavy conversation like this didn't seem to depress him in the least, while Shizuo was learning about so many aspects of life he had been able to ignore so far, he was plunged into deep uncertainty. It was a terrifying and undeniably interesting experience.

"Do you want to know what I think?" Izaya asked, seeming to realize that the way he viewed the world was just a little too jaded for the older boy to take without feeling like everything he had thought to be true was a lie.

It was a little like getting immersed into a movie so much, that after watching it you expected something that had happened in the film to suddenly occur in real life, or that you unconsciously adopted some of the main character's expressions, gestures or catchphrases.

Shizuo nodded, not nearly prepared for whatever mortifying truth Izaya was going to drop on him, but curious beyond belief. It felt like he had discovered a completely new world. A sick and twisted world where you could never feel safe.

"I believe that you never really grow up. You just learn so many things over time, and there are so many more things that you _don't _learn, which will always make you feel uncertain and helpless. You mature with every single second, every new experience. Of course there are some experiences that make you mature a lot faster than others." A sense of fatigue invaded Izaya's eyes and made him look like he had just been ripped out of a dream. And not the good kind.

"What kind of experiences?" Shizuo asked. Izaya blinked and slowly smiled, albeit shakily.

"Tragedies, traumas, unpleasant experiences. I think those steal away your childhood the most." The way Izaya phrased it made the blond boy recognize that the younger boy thought of childhood as something precious that needed to be kept for as long as possible, while the blond student himself always thought it was best to grow up fast.

Being young meant being dependent, at least that was how the blond boy had always seen it, which was why this natural naivety was undesirable and needed to be exterminated.

Izaya heaved a sigh that expressed regret whose source Shizuo couldn't even begin to imagine.

"Dinner's ready." Izaya announced, taking less than a second to completely recover, every sign that would have shown that talking about such difficult topics put him under stress completely eradicated from his face with surprising efficiency.

"What exactly— _is_ that?" Shizuo dared to ask as he looked at the yellowish brown mass Izaya had just piled onto two plates. He was, admittedly, more than happy to be able to change the topic onto something lighter, although he was someone who usually detested small talk.

"Scrambled eggs." The other boy replied easily, yielding his fork like a butcher knife and spearing a piece of egg. The blond boy was convinced that if he had tried a move like that, the plate, heck the whole table would have cracked and broken in two.

"Uh huh." The taller boy grunted, waiting for the brunet to take a bite, before trying the food himself. One could never be careful enough with people as mysterious as this boy.

Izaya calmly began to eat, showing no symptoms of toxic shock, so Shizuo guessed he might as well give this stuff a try, as not to be impolite. He was far too excited and unsettled to be hungry.

Izaya's cooking turned out to be quite good, actually. The meal's extraordinary color could be explained by the soy sauce he had used as seasoning.

"I really think the two of us should go on a trip." Izaya said out of the blue.

"Wh-what kind of trip are you referring to?" The blond student asked warily, wondering if the dark haired boy was insinuating that he wanted Shizuo to get high with him. Because if that was the case, then he was out of here. "I barely know you, so I'm not going to travel with you."

Izaya grinned, his face completely relaxed otherwise, which almost made it look like he didn't have to move any of his facial muscles to produce that smirk, as if it was natural. It also lacked any real joy, though Shizuo suspected that Izaya smiled for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with such positive emotions.

"Aw, you're the kind who doesn't kiss on the first date, aren't you?" The shorter boy lazily brought a tiny piece of food to his mouth and, maybe without realizing, sucked on the sharp ends of the fork for a moment, before chewing lazily.

Shizuo blushed and looked away.


	17. Chapter 17

"What does that have to do with anything? Quit suggesting weird things." Flustered as he was, Shizuo dropped his fork and had to dive beneath the shabby table to pick it back up.

Izaya had the nerve to laugh lightly, which only caused Shizuo's cheeks to turn a deeper shade of red after he had sat back down.

"Do you want a new fork?" The dark haired boy asked.

"Nah, I'm done anyway." Shizuo answered and gazed at his half empty plate. "What _did_ you mean by going on a trip? You're not talking about taking drugs, are you?"

"Eh?" Izaya seemed genuinely surprised and the blond boy couldn't help feeling smug. "Nah, I meant going on a trip to a wonderful town called 'Silent Hill'. Nice weather, beautiful scenery, and occasionally strange creatures with pyramids as heads who might cut you up with their giant sword."

"Doesn't sound like a nice place to be." Shizuo retorted sullenly, crossing his arms. "So you really wanted to travel."

Izaya looked torn between laughing at him and sighing in slight exasperation.

"I was talking about video games. Jesus, Shizu-chan" Shizuo twitched at hearing the stupid nickname. "- how come you don't know what Silent Hill is? It's like, the most popular survival horror game on the market."

"Don't play video games." The blond boy sulked.

"Well then I'll introduce you to them. But I guess that'll have to wait until next time, since your mother will be expecting you home in half an hour." Izaya said, causing Shizuo to look at the wall in search of a clock, only to realize that there wasn't one.

Looking at his cellphone, he found out that it was indeed 9:30 and briefly wondered how Izaya had known. He wasn't wearing a watch, and he hadn't looked at his phone to determine what time it was either.

Picking up his schoolbag as quickly as he would have after a seemingly endless day at school, he stood up equally enthusiastically, without even knowing why he was so glad to finally go home. It wasn't like he'd had a bad time or anything, there was just so much he'd need time to digest.

"Do you live far away from here?" Izaya asked as Shizuo put on his jacket quickly, almost ripping one of the sleeves.

The question lead the blond boy to realize that his eagerness to get home was showing, which in turn made Izaya think that Shizuo was living far away and was hurrying so he wouldn't be late.

"Ah, no." Shizuo said, embarrassed by his answer. He didn't want Izaya to think that he had been desperate to go home because he didn't want to hang out with him. "But when my Mom says 'Be back at 10.' she's actually saying 'You had better be home at 9:30 or you're gonna get in trouble'."

"Well, then tell her I'm sorry to have kept you here." The shorter boy opened the door for him. "Unless you want me to escort you home in which case I'd apologize in person of course."

Shizuo somehow _knew_ that this wasn't a good idea. If his mother found out that he'd been helping someone shop lift, she would have probably gone crazy. Not that he expected Izaya to introduce himself as 'Orihara Thief Izaya', but with this guy, he didn't want to take chances.

"That's okay. Not like anything's gonna happen to me." Shizuo replied and walking out the door before stopping and turning around. "Thanks for the meal. We'll see each other tomorrow."

"Yeah, good night." The shorter boy said, before going back into his apartment and closing the door behind him softly.

The staircase was now completely dark and Shizuo heaved a deep, exhausted sigh. Something made him wonder what the other boy was going to do now, if he was going to do the dishes, take a shower, and go to bed like a normal person.

Looking back at the apartment door, the number '302' glaring at him, illuminated by the tiny stripe of light that shone into the hallway from beneath the door, he decided that it didn't suit Izaya.

His mind was still filled with all the things Izaya had asked and told him, as he climbed down the stairs, slightly worried that meeting Orihara Izaya might have been a bad development.

On the other side of the door, Izaya slipped into a sitting position the instant the door had fallen shut behind him.

Rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes, he breathed deeply a few times, his muscles relaxing so that he almost fell asleep on the spot. When his hand dropped back into his lap, his face looked nothing like it had just a minute ago.

The tension in the muscles above his eyebrows had eased, removing some of the harsh shadows that usually hooded his sharp eyes, which were closed now, and his self-confident smirk had vanished. Like this, he looked like a very tired little boy just waiting for a parent to put him in bed and tuck him in before giving him a loving good night kiss.


	18. Chapter 18

His eerily piercing mahogany eyes opened to reveal fatigue unusual for a 16 year old. His eyes were like open doors, showing the insides of a ruined building that looked totally fine from the outside, at least now that he was in the sanctuary of solitude, hidden away from the world's curious gaze.

It was back.

That distracting sound that always made him believe something was cracking open his skull from the inside, like a plant breaking through concrete pavement to claim back what was rightly his, it was back.

The silent whispers were getting louder, warning him, terrorizing him, they grew louder and clearer, until he couldn't stand sitting there anymore and jumped to his feet, almost breaking into a run, as he hurried towards his bathroom.

Hidden safely at the bottom of one of the drawers he found what he needed, his hand trembling just a little as he raised it to pop several pills into his mouth and washed them down with a few mouthfuls of water.

He stared at himself in the mirror intently until the whispers had died down and he could no longer hear his own insanity bloom within his mind.

Only then did he sink to the ground, breathing in deeply, hesitantly, until laughter bubbled up inside of him and came out shaky and distorted.

"Help Kurumi, huh? You want to save her, Shizu-chan?" He looked at nothing in particular and addressed the blond student as if he was an arm's length away from him. "Save her..." His voice trailed off thoughtfully, a frown darkening his young features, his eyes glistening with something closely resembling hatred or disgust.

And then suddenly, the next moment his scary expression had broken in half and slid off his face like just another mask he chose to wore and his body shook as if he was seriously sick, his hands clutching at his own upper arms as if he was freezing.

Izaya had to wait until his own laughter made it possible for him to speak, completely ignoring the fact that there was no one there besides him, so that actually saying his thoughts out loud was entirely pointless.

"Won't you save me, too, Shizu-chan?"

A picture flashed before his eyes, depicting Shizuo's face, that expression of wary disbelief and disgust when he had looked at the bruised girl at the convenience store. He wasn't quite sure if he remembered correctly, but he thought he had seen resentment in the blond boy's brown eyes. Resentment towards something he hadn't been prepared to see and hadn't wanted to be witness of.

"Ah, I wonder what you'd look like if you _knew_. If I ever told you...what would your expression look like? Maybe I should take a picture." Izaya laughed to himself before his giggling was abruptly cut short when he curled up tightly, shaking again and dry heaving, whispering soothing nothings to himself until he had somewhat calmed down, his pale face reappearing from behind his delicate hands.

He let out air through his nose in a sarcastic snort, his eyes filled with animosity while he clawed at his arm. "Not like anything happened to me you would be interested in, ne, Shizu-chan?...Nothing happened."

His face became entirely blank, void of any emotion while he blinked slowly as if he had just woken up from a dream and wasn't quite sure yet what was real and what was a figment of his imagination.

"Yeah, nothing happened. Everything's okay." He told himself so anyway and as he searched his brain for the train of thought that had made him feel so horribly scared, insecure and disgusted with himself just a second ago, he came up empty. The thought, the memory seemed to be wiped from his brain entirely and he heaved a sigh of relief.

He got up as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't just been sitting on the ground and almost broken down, as if that was just a normal, daily occurrence and at this very moment, he couldn't remember for the life of him whether it really _was_. He was incredibly tired, swaying a little as he walked like a drunk person and stumbled, but he forced himself to stay awake.

Whistling one of his favorite songs, he cleaned up a little, did the dishes, did his homework without much of an effort.

Silent loneliness accompanied his every movement and at times he whispered to himself because he felt the silence starting to drag him down into deep depression. He didn't say anything of importance and he didn't engage people who weren't even present in conversations the way he had before.

He just mumbled numbers while doing his math homework or read his own English essay out loud to himself, not because he thought it even came close to having a real person with him or because he was trying to fabricate a person that wasn't really there, but because he recognized that he was completely alone and comforted himself with the fact that he would always have himself to rely on.

It was a thought that made him feel at least a little better as he crawled into his less than comfortable bed, pulling the blanket over himself and curling up, his back pressing into the wall behind him.

Mostly chemically induced fatigue carried him off to that far away, anonymous place where he lost himself in blank whiteness, a place where he didn't have to be himself and where he didn't have to deal with any changes. He felt both safe and intimidated by the manifestation of his own inner emptiness.

Surrounded by cloudy white nothingness, he waited patiently for the next morning to arrive.


	19. Chapter 19

It was too quiet when he returned. Usually, at this time of day, the faint sound of his parents watching TV together and discussing various things was a comforting tune to fall asleep to.

It never meant anything good when the house was wrapped in almost complete silence like this and something within him twisted painfully as Shizuo bend down to take off his shoes and heard his mother approach, a certain weariness clinging to each and every one of her steps.

"Welcome home." She muttered, her voice slightly higher than usual and hoarse although she still managed to sound like she was happy to see him. He had to swallow down a mixture of anger, sadness and helplessness before he raised his gaze to look at her.

"Yeah, I'm home." He said, some part of him wishing he could just leave without another word. Especially when he looked at his mother's pretty face looking so pained, tension creating deep worry lines on her forehead that weren't visible on a normal day but would probably some day be etched onto her face.

Her eyes were red around the edges and deep exhaustion made her look far older than she actually was.

Just looking at her and having to feel pity rise within him made him want to run up the stairs, close the door to his room – and his heart along with it – and just forget about everything. The smell of whatever his family had eaten for dinner sickened him.

"How was your day?" she asked and he cringed, because he knew that if she asked him about his day he was expected to ask her about hers, which meant that he would have to listen to her tell him about another fight she'd had with his father.

He knew it made him seem like kind of a dick to not want to listen to his parent's troubles, especially since they had helped him get through a lot of things and had always supported him, even when the entire world seemed to be against him.

But it was precisely because he loved his parents and was concerned about them, that he didn't want to hear about their fights, didn't want to be faced with the problems they had with each other, especially since each time his father and mother fought, the reason could somehow be traced back to him.

"It was alright." He replied, bending down to open his school bag. He was almost relieved when he remembered that he still had homework to do, since it gave him an excuse to cut this conversation short.

"What about your new friend? What's he like?" His mother inquired.

Shizuo was surprised when his mouth almost began to talk without his permission. There were so many things to say about Orihara Izaya, it felt like his head would burst if he didn't at least tell someone a little bit about the other boy. It was something the blond student wasn't used to, since he usually kept most things to himself – unless they were really damn important – and never really felt the need to communicate much, mostly because he thought that the things he had to say wouldn't be of interest to anyone anyway, so he didn't want to burden anyone with having to listen to him.

"He's okay. A little weird, but finding a normal person in _that_ kind of school is impossible anyway." Actually, the younger boy was plenty weird and there really wasn't an excuse the blond boy knew of that explained Izaya's oddities. Yet he still phrased his sentence in a way that defended the dark haired boy he had only just met today.

"I wish we could send you to another school. I don't like the thought of you having to be in one classroom with ruthless criminals." His lips formed a small smile at that. Despite his strength and the fact that it was his own fault he was stuck at a school mostly visited by delinquents, his mother still worried about him and had his back and most importantly, didn't count him as one of them, which showed him that in some way, she understood that he never meant to do any real harm when another object was smashed.

"But you don't need to worry. Izaya isn't a criminal." Aside from the fact that he stole stuff on a regular basis and had apparently stabbed someone with a knife he kept on him at almost all times.

"You should invite that boy over some time. I'd like to see what kind of person he is." His mother mentioned and for some reason, he felt like she was intruding on his privacy.

"I don't even know him that well yet." He muttered, shame crawling over his body and tinting his cheeks a very faint shade of pink, even though he had no idea why.

He blamed it on the fact that the way his mother insisted on meeting his new friend in person reminded him of one of those romantic comedy movies, where the teenage son got his first girlfriend and had to introduce her to his parents, who were overly critical and followed her every move and gesture in search of some flaw that justified them to say that she wasn't good enough for him.


	20. Chapter 20

They were both quiet for a while as he stood up, his schoolbag dangling from one shoulder. His mother looked very fragile with her eyes red from crying, and it was the first time in months that he realized how much taller he was than her.

Wanting nothing more than to walk up the stairs and enter his familiarly dull room, guilt kicked in and reminded him that he needed to at least ask her why she had obviously been crying until not too long before he had returned. He felt it was his duty, even though he was tired of having to replace a psychotherapist or marriage counselor she was too stubborn or ashamed to make an appointment with.

"So what happened?" He asked, his voice deep and resolute, hiding the uncertainty that really invaded him as he let his guilt control his actions. He knew he was in for another conversation that would depress him deeply, simply because he didn't want to be faced with the fact that some day his parents might come to the ingenious conclusion that they needed to get a divorce.

And since he depended heavily on his family and the fact that there were three people waiting for him to return in the evening, who listened to him if he was in trouble and were on his side no matter what, his parents getting separated was a purely horrific thing to imagine.

So in some way, he hated himself for staying down here and consigning himself to having to listen to things that threatened to destroy the delusion he lived in, in which even if the whole world crumbled and broke apart, even if he really fucked something up or something really bad happened, his family would always be there as a unity to help him.

"Ah, your father and I had a little disagreement." She sighed heavily. When his parents fought, they really liked to stray from the topic they had actually been fighting over, until they were just repeating accusations they backed up with things that had happened ages ago. Most of the times they got so riled up they didn't even pay much attention to what they were saying anymore, meaning that the damage they did with their words only got worse and worse.

"'Bout what?" He asked, even though he didn't actually want to know, because he knew that they had most likely been fighting about something that involved him. They always did.

"Your father thought that letting you stay at a friend's house until 10 PM when you have school the next day was irresponsible of me." She said remarkably calmly. Shizuo considered himself lucky that, although his parents did yell at each other rather loudly when they were arguing, they were never violent with each other. They shouted and insulted, made false accusations and ignored each other for a couple of days afterward, but at least they didn't hit each other, no matter how angry they both got.

Guilt settled heavily in his stomach. He had been right, they had fought because of him yet again.

"I told him that you rarely ever spend time with friends anyway, so I didn't want to be in the way when you finally did seem to get along with someone." She explained to him and he knew from the way she looked at him that she was silently pleading for him to agree with her, because obviously a grown adult and mother of two such as herself needed someone to back up her opinion, just because her husband disagreed with her.

Sometimes, and Shizuo hated himself deeply for feeling that way, he resented her for her weakness and resented his father for making his wife doubt herself so much after she had managed to work part time and raise two children with success, at least in Kasuka's case, since Shizuo hadn't exactly turned out the way he should have, considering that he had such a good and caring mother. It wasn't her fault, although the blond boy's father sometimes liked to blame his wife for all the things their oldest son did wrong.

"If I'd known that it'd be that much of a problem, I would've come home right after school." He muttered in a vaguely apologetic tone of voice.

"Pff, in that case your father would have only found something else to complain about and blame me for." She scoffed, an obstinate light bringing her tired eyes to life. "I can't do anything right for him. I guess I'll just have to deal with that."

"Yeah." He agreed, knowing that she needed to hear him agree as she shifted the blame onto her husband. "I'm sorry." He added, although he felt it was out of place to apologize. He didn't do so to make his mother feel better by shouldering some of the responsibility, but because he wanted her to realize that he felt responsible and in turn needed her to tell him that it wasn't his fault the same way she had just a moment ago.


	21. Chapter 21

"You don't need to apologize, it wasn't your fault." She told him in mild surprise, although he knew that deep down, she was just a little happy to notice that her son could be so polite and was ready to take responsibility. He felt incredibly pathetic for how relieved he was at her words, although guilt clung stubbornly to his every thought.

After a few moments of silence, he decided he had stayed and listened to her long enough to not seem indifferent to her problems while avoiding too much emotional damage and walked towards the stairs.

As he passed her by, he stopped to give her a hug, feeling her lean into his chest in an way that undeniably asked for protection. His hands awkwardly rubbed her back in long, circular strokes and his neck hurt slightly as he leaned his head down to rest his face on her shoulder.

"Could you..." He knew that she was going to ask him to actively get involved in her fight with his father now and he cringed just a little. " –maybe tell your father that you really wanted to spend the afternoon with that friend of yours? He made it sound as if I was forcing you to meet your friends. He made it sound as if I didn't want to have you here, which is total nonsense, of course."

He nodded silently and let go of her, muttering something along the lines of 'Don't worry.' or 'It's going to be okay.', since he didn't know what else to say, wishing her a good night, before climbing up the stairs.

"Hi Dad." He greeted his father who was in the bedroom, reading the newspaper, since he had to work early and had no time to do so in the morning.

"Good Evening." His father replied, looking up from the newspaper and folding it back together instinctively, since he knew that whenever Shizuo bothered to come by and greet him, he had something to say to him.

Sometimes it was hard not to side with his mother, who was always much more obviously emotionally hurt by their arguments than his father, who looked rather indifferent, as if he hadn't made his wife cry so much she looked ready to sleep for three days.

"I just..." Shizuo felt slightly intimidated as a pair of light brown eyes much like his own looked at him expectantly. "It was my idea to visit the new guy from my class. He seemed like a nice guy, he invited me over and I agreed because I wanted to get to know him better. It wasn't Mom's idea, it was mine. And I'm...sorry that this caused so much trouble."

"Your mother sent you to talk to me, I take it?" His father asked rather coldly. Unlike his mother, Shizuo's father didn't have too many qualms about blaming him for all the fights he had with his wife because of him. And sometimes he didn't even feel the need to hide the fact that he though it was his son's fault that he wasn't getting along with his wife as well as he could have if their son didn't continue to do things wrong, even if it really wasn't Shizuo's fault.

"Nah, I just wanted to make that clear." And by that, he was once again shouldering the blame only that, unlike his mother, his father rather liked being able to blame Shizuo. The blond teenager figured that his father was in some way deeply disappointed with him, that at some point, he had fucked up so badly that his father hadn't been able to forgive him completely.

Oddly enough, it was easier for Shizuo to apologize to his mother, who didn't even want or need him to apologize, instead of telling his father he was sorry, since he expected him to do so, because he thought of him as guilty.

"Well, next time you should tell us the day before." Shizuo didn't dare to interject that it wasn't exactly possible to announce such a spontaneous invite. He knew by now that the fastest and easiest way of getting out of this entirely, was to take the blame and agree with whatever conditions his father listed, conditions he tried to fulfill, faintly hoping his father would someday forgive him for whatever he had done wrong in the first place.

"Yeah, I'll do that." Shizuo promised and slowly retreated.

"It's not like I don't want you to make new friends, you know." His father said out of the blue, surprising Shizuo. "I just...don't like what kind of people you might run into at that school."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't spend time with someone I thought was dangerous." And now Shizuo was blatantly lying, although it was true that, physically speaking, Orihara Izaya didn't pose much of a threat to him, neither with, nor without his switchblade.

"That's good." His father said non-commitically, re-opening the newspaper and searching for the article he had been reading before.

"Good Night." The blond boy said, before leaving, barely paying attention to his father's response, as he finally made his way towards his room.


	22. Chapter 22

Throwing his school bag across the room, he let himself drop onto his bed face first, enjoying the bitter sweet way his muscles pulled and ached as they relaxed, an invisible weight lifting off of his shoulders at the prospect of finally having some time to himself.

He stayed completely still for a minute, maybe two, breathing in and out and wanting to just stay here and fall asleep, before he decided that, with his homework still unfinished, he wouldn't be able to relax entirely.

Without any real enthusiasm, he did his homework, at some point only scribbling random nonsense down so that it at least looked like he had put some work into it when the teacher checked their note books.

He managed to undress and put on his pajamas, before brushing his teeth while tiredly meeting his own eyes in the mirror. One hand brushed over his cheek and chin absently, feeling the first hints of rough hair peeking out of his skin beneath his chin.

Raising his head slightly, he eyed the barely visible, incredibly short brown hair intently, his gaze stopping at the razor and shaving cream his mother had bought him for his 14th birthday in an odd bout of enthusiasm that always overcame her when faced with the fact that he was becoming a grown man.

He had found it rather weird and had felt uncomfortable, especially since he didn't really understand what was happening to his body, or why his mother seemed so intrigued by it.

Puberty had knocked on his door early enough as it is and his body had decided at the age of 8 that it was tired of being a child, meaning that without even knowing what was happening to him, his body had changed, causing him a lot of embarrassing situations where the other children were playing ball and he had to sit somewhere farther away in an awkward position to hide the fact that his penis had, for some reason, gotten hard and felt kind of weird and tingly if it happened to brush against the fabric of his pants.

He didn't know what caused it back then, he had been far too young to understand the mechanism of arousal or how to pleasure himself, frankly, it had scared him more often than not, because his body was doing something it hadn't before and it kind of hurt sometimes, leading him to believe that he had some kind of incurable disease to go with his scary strength that already isolated him from his classmates.

And he'd had no one he could tell about it, because his father was rarely ever home, and even if he was, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone to relax after work, and the blond boy hadn't asked his mother about it, because he didn't expect her to know what was happening to him, since she didn't even _have _a penis.

Slightly disturbed by the direction his own thoughts were taking, he entered his room, finally killing the light and lying down on the bed, turning onto his side and loosely draping the blanket over himself.

He relaxed as he breathed in and out deeply, his mind deliberately blank as his hand moved on its own, traveling down his body and sneaking past the hem of his pajama pants.

There were no fantasies he could rely on to turn him on, he always thought about absolutely nothing when he stroked himself, concentrating purely on the sensation of his fingers expertly moving, tugging and stroking as he hardened in his own grasp.

It wasn't erotic in any way, he still didn't quite understand what situations caused him to be aroused since it happened completely randomly sometimes, he had just figured out that this was a good way of calming himself down, of relieving stress. He was able to sleep well when the need for that feeling of pleasure bursting within him and heat pooling pleasantly in his stomach was satisfied, and the tranquility that always followed orgasm lulled him to sleep.

When he was more stressed, it usually took longer, as it was not as easy to completely empty his head and surrender himself to his own touch when there were a million thoughts demanding his attention, so he was surprised how quickly he was nearing the edge, despite the rather disconcerting conversations he'd had with one Orihara Izaya and the fact that his parents had been fighting again.

He kept as quiet as he could, barely breathing at all in fear of one of his family members hearing him panting, assuming he was sick or something and walking in on him masturbating, even as the pressure built and became unbearable, his hand moving desperately.

In those last seconds, just before the point of no return, a vivid picture suddenly flashed up behind his closed eyelids, taking him completely by surprise as he took in the sight of the dark haired boy he had met today, looking at him with eyes that seemed to have seen far too much for someone his age, shadows lingering around brown red eyes, and the intensity of that gaze feeling almost like an ice cold hand had touched him suddenly.

Shock turned his blood cold, his mouth opening to quickly draw in air while his stomach felt incredibly empty. He felt nothing but his own quickening heartbeat and heard nothing but the quick rush of his own blood as he released onto his own hand, his pants, the sheets, the pleasure barely registering in his mind as slowly, the picture faded out and then disappeared entirely, leaving only darkness, as he drifted from shock into deep sleep in a matter of seconds.


	23. Chapter 23

"Goooo~d morning, Shizu-chan." A nerve grating voice greeted him as soon as he had set foot in the classroom. He rubbed his aching eyes and grumbled some sort of reply while avoiding directly looking at the dark haired boy sitting across from him.

Although he had slept through most of the night, his dreams had been dominated by cunning eyes watching his every move and a sly smile mocking him all the while and he felt completely exhausted.

"Did you dream about me?" Izaya asked in a barely serious tone of voice, and Shizuo just knew that his sharp eyes watched him freeze for a moment. "I had a dream about Shizu-chan last night."

"Nah, I didn't dream about you. Why would I?" Shizuo retorted. They were both lying to each other without the other noticing. Or well, without Shizuo noticing, since he knew from the way Izaya's lips curled into an even more devious smile, that he had seen right through him.

He felt the sudden need to add something insensitive like 'I'd never dream about you, you fucking flea, even if you were the last person left on the entire planet', but it seemed pointless to try to make that smirk go away by using insulting words.

It would have only temporarily relieved his frustration, and he didn't want to take the chance of antagonizing Orihara Izaya, though he couldn't quite decide whether he didn't want to do so because the boy creeped him out so much, or whether, on some deep level, he pitied him too much to be able to utter mean words.

"Ah, that's cold." The brunet muttered childishly and put on a face that conveyed regret he didn't really feel. It still looked shockingly real. "I must not have left a lasting impression on Shizu-chan."

"Yeah well, why the hell would you even want to do that anyway?" Shizuo asked irritatedly, only bothering to say anything at all, because he somehow knew that ignoring Izaya would have only made him more annoying.

"Hmm? Are you okay with people just forgetting about you the second their eyes leave you?" The dark haired boy asked cryptically and Shizuo's head pounded at the _thought _of having to come up with a reply. He still tried to, though.

"Yeah, why not? It's a hell of a lot better than leaving a bad impression. Besides, why would I care whether some people I don't give a shit about forget about me or not?" The blond boy realized that he wasn't making a lot of sense, and the pair of red brown eyes that fully focused on him glinted with intelligence that intimidated and fascinated him at the same time.

"If you don't care about whether they forget about you or not, then it shouldn't matter to you if you left a bad impression either, right?" The smaller boy looked insolently smug, before becoming more serious. "Besides, we're not _complete _strangers."

"I hardly know anything about you!" Shizuo interjected, though he didn't mean to contradict the other boy, at least not consciously. For some reason, he always got worked up when talking to this boy, always got angry enough to want to smash something.

"Well, we're certainly more acquainted than two people who met on the street randomly and couldn't decide to go left or right while walking past each other." Izaya instantly corrected and Shizuo rubbed at his eyes frustratedly, tiredly.

"...yeah, I guess so." Shizuo conceded, before looking at the shorter boy with eyes that were still slightly puffy from sleeping. "So what's your point?"

Although he didn't quite know why, the blond boy felt the strong urge to choke the thin teenager before him for suddenly looking at him in surprise.

"My point? Why does there have to be a 'point'? I was simply assessing our relationship." The blond boy's frown deepened at the word 'relationship'.

"So I guess you're just talking because you love the sound of your own voice so much." The tall student stated. "And don't use words like 'relationship' so freely. People might get the wrong idea." Brown eyes scanned the class room, only to find that all the other students were still talking to each other loudly, while some of them were casually breaking furniture, as if it was the most normal thing to throw a chair against the wall and laugh as the legs broke off.

"You mean the 'people' you don't give enough of a shit about to care whether they forget about you or not?" Izaya asked in amusement, while it took Shizuo a moment to remember that he had said almost these exact same words just a minute ago. "Besides, aren't you taking the world 'relationship' a little too seriously?"


	24. Chapter 24

"Just let it go already." The blond boy groaned, his headache increasing, while his brain begged for just a few more minutes of being able to stay idle.

"Well, I think it's kind of a scary thought." Shizuo raised an eyebrow, signaling that he had absolutely no fucking clue _what_ the other boy thought to be scary. "People forgetting about you, I think it would feel like you're not even really there to begin with. Like you could just vanish the next second, as if you hadn't ever really existed."

And basically, this kind of gloomy statement was what he had been waiting for the second he had asked Izaya why he wanted to leave a lasting impression on him so badly.

It almost felt like Izaya willingly set up these kinds of situations, where he could say depressing things like that, maybe to get rid of them and to not have to dwell on them any longer than he probably already had. Because no matter what they talked about, even when Izaya was the one asking Shizuo a question, the conversation ended with the shorter boy sharing some tidbit of his rather despondent concept of truth with the blond student.

If the dark haired boy wanted to talk about himself so much, he could've just fired away, instead of dragging out these pointless conversations until he found a chance to inconspicuously share his opinion.

It led the blond boy to believe that Izaya was either trying to manipulate him into having an equally hopeless outlook on life, or attempting to make Shizuo _realize_ that this was how he viewed the world and possibly feel the need to help him, since it wasn't really much of a secret that Izaya was a fucked up person, for reasons Shizuo wasn't sure he wanted to find out about.

The question was, whether Izaya deliberately tried to come across as needy for encouragement and someone to talk to, or if that was just another act simply to get attention and leave that lasting impression that seemed so inexplicably important to him.

All Shizuo knew was that the other boy seemed lonely, that he was lonely himself and that there was something not quite right with their _friendship_ already, because from the way the shorter boy managed to get under the blond student's skin with pretty much every word that came out of his mouth, he couldn't help but think that somehow their so called relationship ran deeper than he felt comfortable admitting.

The blond boy was just helplessly confused by all those dazzling smiles that were thrown his way while sharp, red eyes analyzed his reaction and always carried a sliver of sadness in them Izaya seemed to be unaware of.

When their teacher entered the room for two mind numbingly boring math lessons, Shizuo was glad that classes were starting for probably the first time since he had become a student. It gave him an excuse to not have to talk to Izaya, to just turn off his brain and let his mind go blank, as he stared at the confusingly cryptic symbol of their school on the back of the pullover the student in front of him was wearing.

Like small needles pricking his skin, he felt the presence of a certain pair of red brown eyes gazing at him every now and then, observing him and demanding attention at the same time, but he kept his eyes where they were stubbornly until even after the lesson had ended and the seat in front of him had been abandoned.

It took long for him to snap out of his daze and realize that some students had gathered at the back of the classroom, where a couple of people seemed to have gotten into an argument.

Shizuo inwardly rolled his eyes when he recognized three of them as the assholes who believed they were really high up on this school's so called pecking order, just because they had managed to make pretty much everyone fear them by picking on the weakest students and beating them up after class.

And in the middle of all of this ruckus stood Orihara Izaya – of course he couldn't just have kept his nose out of other people's affairs – positioned between the three tall, burly boys and their emaciated, pale faced victim, which was already lying on the floor, wide eyed and horrified, while shielding his head with his arms.

If he looked closely, Shizuo found that Izaya resembled the boy on the ground quite a lot in terms of being skinny and appearing slightly unhealthy, only that there was a barely contained, belligerent look on his face that made it seem like he wasn't aware of how weak and defenseless he looked compared to the three terrorists staring at him, as if they couldn't believe they'd live to see the day they would witness something as tragically amusing as someone trying to stand up to them.


End file.
